Govt departments told to find fresh 6% spending cuts

Ahead of next week's Budget, the Treasury said new cuts were needed to achieve plans to save £3.5bn by 2020, the BBC reported. It said the NHS and core schools budgets would not be included and any savings found by councils would be spent on under-pressure social services. These cuts will come in addition to major rounds of cuts made to departments' budgets since 2010. According to the Treasury, the government would continue to spend 2% of GDP on defence, and it remains legally obliged to spend 0.7% on overseas aid.  The planned savings are due to be introduced around th...